Epic Real Estate Investing - How to Get More Offers Accepted and Deals Done | 243

Episode Date: January 2, 2017

Join Epic Real Estate Investing as we shift perspective to take on the role of the seller. Put yourself in the shoes of a motivated seller and walk around for a bit.  Gain a new insights on what distressed sellers are looking for in a deal. Learn five ways you can get more offers accepted and deals done when you give sellers clear expectations, submit your written offers and follow up on your intent to close. Happy New Year!   ______   The free course is new and improved!  To access to the two fastest and easiest strategies to a paycheck in real estate, go to FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com or text “FreeCourse” to 55678. What interests you most? • E.ducation • P.roperties • I.ncome • C.oaching   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Broadcasting from Terrio Studios in Glendale, California, it's time for Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. And welcome to Epic Real Estate Investing. Happy New Year. Happy 2017 to you. This is the place where I show people how to escape the rat race using real estate. If you're just getting started and or you're looking for new and creative ways of making money in real estate, I've put together a free course just for you, including a checklist on how to find motivated

sellers, property owners that are willing and able to sell you their property at a discount. So to access that free course, go to free real estate investing course.com. Free real estate investing course.com. All righty. Before we get started, a couple quick announcements. First, the Epic Intensive is just under a month away. If you plan on attending and haven't reserved your seat, please go to Epicintensive.com and do so. Early bird pricing still available until the end of the week.

And if you have reserved your seat and you have yet to book your hotel reservations, the room block expires January 6th, and there are only 11 rooms still available. So you're going to want to take care of that. Room block expires January 6th. And let's see, what's up? Oh, next announcement. If after listening to last episode on the 10 surest fireways to get rich, you do want to, and you do want to participate in the no agent needed project,

more than half of those spots have already filled up. So hurry up, secure your territory, and you can do that. You can get the entire scoop of what the entire project is about with regard to making you famous and sending you organic, motivated seller leads. Go to noagentneededbook.com. No agent needed book.com. To qualify for that program,

you're going to need to be doing at least averaging two deals a month. Okay. So I'll have some other stuff available for those that are just getting started and they're brand new, but this one is really reserved for those that are further along on their business a little bit more established and are looking to take it to that next level and create some fame and some name recognition around their business. So go to no agent needed book.com. All righty?

So today we're going to talk about how to get more offers accepted, how to do more deals. And I've got actually a very different perspective that I'm going to share this with you today. You know, recently for the very first time, I have found myself as being. a motivated seller. I am a distressed seller right now. And when distress, distress comes in three different types. There's sellers can be personally distressed, right? They're going through divorce or illness or job relocation, some sort of personal issue. They're personally distressed. Or sellers can be financially distressed. Maybe they're going through a bankruptcy. They've got they've lost their job. They've got some unexpected expenses or maybe a lawsuit or something came

up or sellers can also have a distressed property. That's the third type of distress. So there's personal distress, financial distress, and then there's property distress. And that property distress being like having a vacant property, having an abandoned property or a fix and flip that went wrong, or a fire damaged property, bad tenants, flood damage, I don't know, poor property management, whatever it may be, the property is in distress. And I have recently found myself with a distressed property that I just flat out want to get rid of. So I followed my, this is beginning of December, I followed my own 20-point marketing checklist, and I just ran through the steps like I do with every property. And for the last few weeks, the phone has absolutely blown up. And what this

experience has given me is a renewed insight as to what it's like to be in a distressed seller's shoes. It's my first time here. I mean, although I think I've always been good at putting the shoe on the other foot and kind of imagining what they'd be going through, the insight and an enlightenment that I've gained by actually being a distressed seller rather than just pretending to be one, it's going to be, this is going to be invaluable on how I move forward in my business this year and well beyond that. So I want to share this new enlightenment with you so you can incorporate this, how you see fit in your business moving forward also.

Right. So, you know, I think this new level of awareness, it's going to impact the number of offers that I get accepted this year, the number of deals I do this year. It's going to give me an edge over any competition that may present itself. and I want you to have that too. All right. So let's say your phone is ringing, right? Your phone is ringing from your marketing efforts.

And every time that phone rings, you're expecting a deal, right? That's your expectations. You're expecting someone who's willing to exchange their equity for you to solve their problem. Someone over there is, you're expecting to give them peace of mind in exchange for equity. That's what you're expecting. But in getting more offers accepted, it's really more important to understand what the person calling you is expecting first. You know, first seek to understand, then be understood.

I think that's what, one of the seven habits of highly effective people. And it very much is the case here. So there are a wide variety of expectations coming from the other side. And a few are even hoping that you're going to be able to solve their problems. But for you to get deals done, for you to really be effective, you're going to have to put yourself in that caller's shoes and perhaps even walk around in them in a bit. Or a little, you have to walk around them a bit. You see that the person calling, understand this, the person calling just received something in the mail with some sort of message,

alluding to that the person that sent it to them can buy their house for cash and they can do that fast. That's what they're reading. That's why they're calling. But what are they thinking? What are their expectations? What is actually going through their mind? They're thinking things like, this is too good to be true. This ain't going to work.

Or they're thinking, you know, you're some kind of shark that's going to try. and take advantage of them, but they're in such a situation that they're willing to take a shot at it, or you're going to steal their house, or it's not going to be a real offer, it's going to be really low offer. And this is probably going to be a waste of time. They might be thinking that. There's a lot of variations of this, but they're calling because they've got an issue that needs to be resolved, and they're hoping that you can do it.

And really, this can all be summed up into they're calling that first call, they're calling with their guard up, all right? They're on guard. And that's exactly where I've been the last few weeks, as, buyers and agents have been calling me for more information on my distressed property. So before you answer the phone, when people are calling, these distress sellers are calling you from your marketing, you must understand that's the likely disposition of the person calling you. They've got their guard up.

I mean, all of the above has actually been my exact disposition. So I can vouch for that's, I was thinking all of those things. Although I wasn't responding to marketing, people were calling me trying to buy my property. And typically this is not an issue for me because I really never need to sell. This one I need to sell. I want to get rid of this thing. I really want to get rid of this thing. It's been keeping me up at night.

It's been a headache of mine for the last three years. And I'm just going to cut my losses. I'm going to move on so I can focus elsewhere. And so that has been my exact disposition. I've noticed this shift in my being as these calls are coming in. Everyone's calling and asking questions about the property. And so another thing to keep in mind is you just sent your marketing piece to someone that's likely got a problem. Right?

That's where they're calling. And they're calling you with likely two things in mind. First, can this person really solve my problem? So that's what I'm thinking when the people are calling me. Can this person really solve my problem? Because I got a problem. And second, can I trust them to not make my situation worse? So when your motivated sellers are calling you, that's what they're thinking.

Can you really solve their problem? Are you going to be able to solve their problem without making their situation worse? Are you going to waste their time? And that's what I've been thinking. And, I mean, this is really the biggest fear as me being a distress seller. time around. I want to get into contract with someone who's going to make, or I don't want to get into contract. I almost said that incorrectly. I don't want to get into contract with someone who is going to make my situation worse. I don't want to get into contract with someone that's going to

waste my time. So my guard is up on every call that I'm receiving. And the people that are calling you from your marketing efforts, you best believe their guard is up too. And that's okay. I mean, that's just how it is when two people under these circumstances meet for the very first time. Just understand that it's not personal, right? They don't know you from Adam. I don't know these callers that are calling me from Adam. I mean, so if we don't know each other, how could it be personal, right? Right.

So if they've got their guard up, I've got my guard up, it's your job to get them to drop their guard. Or what I like to call you, it's your job to disarm them. And that's really what these buyers, with me being in this situation, they need to call me and make me feel comfortable. They need to disarm me. Now, in the past, many times I've given you the exact words to say, but I've really come to see from the other side of the coin, the other, being on having the shoe on the other foot, that it's how you say them, I think, is even more important. So here are some techniques for disarming motivated sellers that worked on me. I mean, I teach this stuff on how to do this. And now that I had this distressed property that I want to

dump, all of a sudden, I know I recognize who I was moral inclined to do business with. So one, be respectful okay be respectful don't call up there some people called him said hey you got a crappy property over there um i bet it's really a thorn in your side um too bad for you i'll give you a hundred bucks for it i mean those type of offers i was exaggerating a little bit but those type of things i was like dude that's not i don't want to sell to you thanks but no thanks so we don't you want to be respectful um there's one guy that he drove by it and he called me and he laughed at me for even buying it in the first place it's not being respectful all right so he didn't have a shot two you want to be interested and not interested in how you're going to get a great deal on the property, but interested

in them, their situation and how you can help them. And people always, of course, everyone was somewhere along that process, people were asking me, why are you selling? And I just told them, and I told them the whole story. And yeah, I know it's kind of tough in that area sometimes, or I had a property like that. Those people that identified with that, I was like, okay, I can talk to this person. Three, you want to find common ground. For example, if they're a landlord complaining about their tenants, relate how you've had some stinkers also. Like, you've had some bad tenants as well, and you can relate. I mean, if you learn that they're into, say, tennis on the weekends and you used to play in high school, maybe it's something you want to bring up. I identified with one guy on

the barbecue that they serve on Beale Street in Memphis. So that was a place where we were building rapport. That's number four, build rapport. And you build rapport by implementing a lot of these first three steps that I just mentioned, being respectful, being interested, finding common ground, and asking questions. That would be the next one. Ask questions. and listen to the answers, genuinely listen. I've noticed myself really connecting with the people that were genuinely listening to me. And then number five, I've always said this. I don't know if it really applied in this scenario, but flattery.

I mean, there's an expression that flattery will get you everywhere. Now, I'm not going to say that it's going to get you everywhere in your real estate investing business, but it'll certainly get you much further down the rapport building road than being disrespectful. And here's what I mean with regard to flattery. I mean, for example, if they're upside down in their property, acknowledge how they've been able to hold on to it for this long as so many others have lost theirs or if they've got equity in their house, acknowledge how good they've done as so many

people you speak to have lost their equity. That type of flattery. Not like, oh, boy, your voice sounds really nice over the phone. Not that. All right? So from your first time talking to your sellers, your intent of this first call is to set an appointment or at the very least, I've always said it's to set an appointment. I still believe that. But at the very least, set the expectations with the seller of what you're going to do next. Don't leave the seller hanging, wondering what's going to happen. And this part right here was very important to me being on the seller side. You know, someone called me and asked a few questions about the property and ended the call with, okay, I'll check it out and I'll get back to you, which happened frequently.

I'm probably getting 10 to 15 calls a day on this property. And as the seller, I had no confidence in that person calling me back. And that's fine. I mean, you don't have, it doesn't, you know, I'm not sitting there hanging on every word waiting for every person to call me back with an offer. But what that did is I recognized that the next person that called me essentially started with a clean slate because it really was. I wasn't expecting anything from the previous caller. So when that next person called, I was okay, all right, we're up to bad again. Let's go for it again. I wasn't thinking I had anybody on deck.

I didn't think the other person was that serious. So I really forgot all about them when I was talking to the next person. So that's going to be something that I absolutely do every time I talk to a motivated seller. I let them know exactly what I plan to do next. And I think I do that unknowingly or subconsciously, but I'm going to be conscious of it. I'm going to make sure that I do it. I'm going to make sure that every seller I talk to knows what I plan to do next. And a few of the buyers that call me said, I'm going to grab my contractor and I'm going to drive by the property.

I'll call you back as soon as I'm done and let you know how I can help. I appreciated that. And those are the people that I'm actually still in conversation with. I appreciated that. And I waited for their phone calls because I felt that they were actually going to call. and I took that next step that they had promised into consideration when I spoke with the next person that called. So I was able to say, yeah, I've got someone out there looking at the property right now. They took their contractor out there and they're going to be getting back to me soon.

So if you want this property, if you were interested in it, you might want to get out there and look at it too. See, it gave me a way to respond. It gave me some comfort. And it also put me in a position to go ahead and, you know, weed out and sort the buyers from the non-buyers, the prospects, from the suspects. Next thing I noticed is that it had me more likely to work with one of the buyers was those that called me a lot. I noticed that those that called me a lot. I was like building a relationship with them. There was rapport being built.

And I've always kind of like, I've always called onto my motivated sellers. I always keep stay in communication. But I never, like, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to bother them also. I didn't want to get on their nerves. But being on the other side, I actually appreciated the over. communication. I took their calls more seriously. It gave me confidence in working with them. I just felt that they were serious and they were likely to follow through if we did happen to enter into an agreement together. So I say that would be tip number two. I got that from

this experience to err on the side of over communicating. You certainly don't want to under communicate. You want to over communicate. That's where you, if you're going to falter on one way or the other, err on the side of over communicating, right? Tip number three, I got this from, I got tip number three from this experience. As you've heard me say this before, but being on the other side, I'm going to repeat it and request you do not underestimate the power of submitting your offer in writing. I'm always saying you've got to submit in writing. You're not going to do any deals until you submit the offer.

You've got to submit your offer. You've got to put it in writing. Always. And I had a few people trying to sit there and negotiate everything over the phone with me. Some people were sending me text going back and forth in text messages, trying to create a deal right there in the text message. But I had nothing in writing. And those people actually scared me a little bit

because they just seemed like a little flighty and I didn't take their call seriously. Additionally, they left me with no real action that I could take on their request. I mean, I had to sit there and wait and wonder if they were ever going to come through. But for those that submitted their offer in writing, they went right to the top of the contention

of the buyer I was going to choose. Like they had a better shot than anybody else because they actually had it in writing. I knew they were serious or more serious at least of buying the property. And there was an action that I could take. I could accept or I could counterback or I could reject. I had a greater level of comfort working with those that submitted their offers in writing.

And those that didn't submit their offers and writing, I didn't call them back to say, hey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? I had no way to communicate with them. And quite honestly, by talking to so many people, I didn't really have it sorted out of who said what and who promised what, who offered what. So even if I wanted to, even if I had their contact information, I'd have to call them back and refresh my memory of what we actually agreed to.

And that's just not a good position to be in. And it's something that I avoided. So I just kind of focused on those people that submitted their offers in writing. So always submit your offers in writing. All right. Always present an offer. Tip number four. And I knew this already.

A lot of this was refresher. I mean, I kind of knew this, but I just kind of have a deeper understanding of it now that I was actually on the other side and not pretending to be. And this here, I've shared this with you several times. But I think I've kind of always shared it indirectly, not as a true. direct tip or is a direct thing to do. And with my, my biggest fear of entering contract with someone on this deal, that they were, my biggest fear was that they were either going to waste my time or make my situation even worse. Those were my big fears. They were going to waste my time or make my situation worse. So those written offers that came in that conveyed through their price

in terms that they were actually going to follow through and close the deal, those people that that conveyed that in their offer, they went right to the top of my list of who I was going to sell to, right to the top. Because I didn't want to waste my time. I want to get this thing done. I don't want my situation to even be worse, which is a potential for this property.

So this will also be a dynamic. I focus on more in 2017 and beyond. And how do you do this? There's a lot of different ways to convey your intention that can express the certainty and the ease of clothes, the comfort and the confidence that you can give to the seller and make it easier for them to accept your offer. So there's many ways that you can do this. And I don't know if I'm not going to hit on all of them, but here's what I paid attention to of all these offers coming in. One was the speed of close.

That was really important to me. One guy said that he could close and three to four days as long as his contractor gave it the thumbs up. And that caught my attention. It caught my attention even more than the price that they were offering and the price and the offers that I received. Now, I know three to four days, that's really fast. Most deals will never happen that fast. And I know if your strategy is wholesaling, three to four days, that might be rather impossible. But just understand the speed of clothes and the ease of clothes. If you can convey that in your offer, that caught my attention as a motivated seller more than the price.

Second, offering a non-refundable deposit. Again, something that caught my attention even more than the price. And I've done this before myself. But being on the other side, I was like, oh, even there's one guy's just offered 500 bucks to get into contract and he offered as a non-refundable. He wanted his time to do his due diligence and that was his way of getting in. Kind of like a pseudo-option type contract. But that was something that caught my attention. And it caught my attention and I had me consider the price even less.

Okay. So the speed, the non-refundable deposit, those are ways you can do it. You don't have to do them all. These are just ideas. Third, proof of funds. again, something that caught my attention even more than price, I think. Because I'm sitting and thinking, oh, my, this person is serious. They're actually going to follow through with this.

Why would they go to all this trouble if they weren't really genuinely interested in the property? In fact, only one person submitted their offer with their proof of funds. And it stood out. It absolutely stood out for sure. So rather than waiting to be asked for a proof of funds, where that's a big fear for a lot of people, like what if they ask me for proof of funds? I don't have proof of funds. What do I do if they ask for proof of funds?

Why not start? including a proof of funds letter with all of your offers from this point moving forward. That's what we're doing from now on. We've actually been doing that for a couple months with one specific strategy, but now we're going to incorporate that into all of our strategies. And if you didn't know, if you don't know where you're going to get a proof of funds, you can get an automated proof of funds letter at Epicfunding Solutions.com. Go to Epicfunding Solutions.com, fill in the blanks, and hit submit, and boom,

you'll get a PDF of proof of funds letter that you can submit with your deals. Okay. And here's something that pushed the deal over the top for me. This right here that gave me the utmost confidence in accepting this person's offer. He had said, I know the area. I already drove by the property. I have a couple properties just like it. I know exactly what I'm getting into.

I'll make this swift and painless for you. That was it. As a distressed seller, I was looking more for that than the top price. I wanted peace of mind around this deal more than I wanted the equity, more than I wanted the profit. This person, they still made me a solid offer. It wasn't like I just ignored everything else. They still made a solid offer. But it wasn't the highest offer.

It was actually the third highest. So let's recap what you may be able to incorporate into your future offers and helping them and getting more offers accepted, doing more deals this year and well beyond that. Don't have to do all of them, but just kind of absorb this in and, and, and, and take in the ideas of different ways when you find a deal that you really want, or if you find a deal where you know there's competition, this is the way that you can edge them out, or this is the way you can make sure that you get that deal that you really want.

One, tell the seller exactly what to expect next from you every time you talk to them. Right? Tell the seller exactly what you expect next from every time you talk to them. Two, err on the side of overcommunication. Now, don't be a pest. Don't be annoying. Call them for a reason. have something valuable to contribute or a good question to ask, but err on the side of overcommunication.

Three, always send a written offer. Always send a written offer. Even if you know it's going to get rejected, even if it's lower than what you were talking about on the phone, send it anyway, send a written offer. Because when those low ball offers came into me that were written, they were still there being shuffled around when I was reviewing offers. The ones that did not send an offer, they didn't have a chance. Okay. Number four, demonstrate in your offer your intent to close. Create that certainty for the seller. Create that comfort for the seller. Instill confidence in the seller.

And the way that you can do that, you can offer to close quickly. You can offer a non-refundable deposit. You can offer or you can provide proof of funds. And you can demonstrate your knowledge and your experience with the area and the type of the deal that you're taking on. Let them know, hey, I know what I'm getting into. I'm going to get you in and out of this. It's going to be great. I know the area.

I know the property. And I've done this before. Like, if you can convey that type of confidence in your phone conversation or when you're face-to-face in your rapport building, that went really far from me. They went really far with me. All right. So, and the person that touched on each one of those is the person that I'm going into contract with.

I'm recording this on Friday, so you're listening on Monday. So there's not a signed contract. I'll bring you up to date next Monday. And also, I'll show you how I've taken a total bath on this property. I'm losing my shirt on this property. but I'm going to show you how I was able to actually get myself a little bit over break even after it will be all said and done. Okay, so I'll share that with you and also share it with you the update on how this went. So I communicated just before I started recording this that we got a deal, so I'm just waiting for the contract and getting the final signatures to be put into place.

And so I went with the person that touched on each one of these points. And there were two other offers that offered more money than he did. And this other stuff, the certainty of clothes was much more important to me. See, money isn't always the answer with motivated sellers. Speed, ease, and the certainty of closing is just as or even more important than money, depending on the motivated seller's situation. And this property, I'm motivated. I don't want anymore.

Motivated sellers, they're going to exchange peace of mind for equity all day long and twice on Sunday, and I sure did. That mess of a property is going to be behind me, and I'm off to bigger and better deals of where I'll make up the losses through peace of mind. I'll make up the losses through a clear mind and focus, not to mention more quality sleep each night because this property has certainly caused some sleepless nights. All righty? So I'll bring you up to date next Monday on that deal on how that went.

Now before I go, if you want to become the recognized real estate investor in your region and you'd like to get organic, motivated seller leads indefinitely, go to no agent needed book.com for the details. No agent needed book.com for the details. I only have room for one real estate investor per region and I like to get this all wrapped up in the next week or so and start sending the participants their leads as soon as possible. So this is first come, first serve. Go to no agent needed book.com and get the scoop there and perhaps we'll be talking soon. I sure hope so.

All right, that's it for today. I'll see you next week on another episode of Epic Real Estate Investing. God bless. And to your success, I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream. You've been listening to Epic Real Estate Investing, the world's foremost authority on separating the facts from the BS in real estate investing education. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to visit iTunes and share your thoughts. Thanks for listening.

We'll see you next time here at Epic Real Estate Investing with Matt Terrio. This podcast is a part of the C-suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.